Heianjo? tsuba

[Mantis dude]

Hi all,

 

Picked this tsuba up among a few others, just want to confirm it is likely Heianjo. 4mm X 70.5×73mm. Plus if anyone can put a time frame to it would be nice.

thanks.

Ken

[shan]

Hi Ken,

I alway thought that Heianjo was inlay not overlay but i am definatly going to be corrected on this.

I have to admit i like it though.

shan

[John A Stuart]

Hi Ken, This tsuba fairly screams Heianjo zogan, to me. The only other possibility would be Onin zogan. I favour the Heianjo thought though. It looks very similar to themes common during the Momoyama period. John

[Mantis dude]

Hey All,

 

I did a bunch of looking and the more I saw the more I thought heianjo fit. Nan, if you do some reading you will find out that both techniques were utilized by heianjo. I get this "can this be too good to be true feeling" sometimes and start thinking a piece is more than it is, etc. So John, I appreciate you comments. It is nice to gets some confirmation on what you think you are seing. The overall design/layout fits with the school from what I saw as well as the flowers/leaves are very alike to other pieces I saw in some books. I came across some pieces very similar but with a squirrel instead of the mantis.

I have one tsuba that is papered to heianjo (tsuba 48) but it has a different feel and look to it.

 

I have one other piece and the layout is not that different but it is a late edo copy. It was pointed out, go back to the plate, many of these late shiirimono type knockoffs have this glassy look on the tsuba plate.

 

Hopefully, you can see the differences from the pics. But this last piece plate doesn't have that glassy plate look like the one aboe. It was nice to have a few to compare. This tsuba was also tsuba #65 for the collection, I always like assigning milestones numbers to a piece. It is fun to have my collection grow.

Thanks for the comments.